Spotify reaches another milestone: 60 million active users

Spotify’s user base continues to trend upward. The streaming music provider on Monday revealed it now has 60 million active listeners, a quarter of which are paying subscribers.

Last May, Spotify revealed it had 10 million paid subscribers on its roster and around 40 million users that tune in to their ad-supported service. During the public spat with disgruntled artist Taylor Swift in November, the company boasted it had more than 12 million paying subscribers.

At the time, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said his company had more paying subscribers than all of its (music-only) competitors combined. Such is likely still the case today barring a tremendous growth spurt that we probably would have heard about by this point.

While steady growth is always welcomed, it hasn’t exactly been an easy road Spotify over the past year. The public dispute with Swift and others has highlighted a sore spot for the streaming music industry: royalties.

Many artists feel as though they aren’t earning enough money from their work although companies like Spotify readily dispute that claim.

Spotify offers ad-supported listening, even on mobile devices, free of charge. For $9.99 per month, subscribers can forego the ads, listen to tunes offline and enjoy improved audio quality. That’s roughly par for the course in the streaming music business although newcomers like Deezer could mix things up with cheaper rates.

The company is also rumored to be preparing for an IPO, quietly recruiting people to assist with the process. The initial plan was to go public in late 2014 but that obviously didn't pan out. No word yet on when the move is now expected to happen.